94 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
February 5 
HOPE FARM NOTES. 
The mild weather has sprouted up the 
hens nicely, and they are now really be¬ 
ginning work. Our January record will 
certainly make a better showing, and it 
looks now as though the cost of an egg 
would get down to a reasonable figure. 
The selling price is still good—our dealer 
pays us three cents each : at this rate, a 
dozen eggs per day will buy the grain 
for 175 fowls. The Black pullets are all 
coming in together, and the chorus they 
make is enough to gladden the heart. The 
pullets bought in the live poultry market 
in New York last summer have about all 
started. The old hens are still hanging 
fire, but they will join the procession 
soon. Even the patients in the roup 
hospital laid two eggs the other day. In 
fact, the egg trade is looking up, and it’s 
high time it did. Quite a number of 
letters have come to us of late, and this 
week, we will try to put a few of them 
into the incubator. Here is one from 
Michigan : 
Why don’t my hens lay ? They have com¬ 
modious, warm quarters, well ventilated and 
lighted, kept reasonably clean, and the fowls are 
practically free from vermin. About 20 were 
hatched in 1896, and about 30 in May and June 
1897—Wyandottes. They have scratching room, 
well littered, and good inducements to scratch. 
I feed a warm mash in the morning, of four to six 
quarts bran, corn meal, middlings and ground 
oats, mixed ; at noon, perhaps a quart of buck¬ 
wheat or wheat screenings in the litter to induce 
scratching; at night, about two quarts corn or 
screenings. They have daily three or four quarts 
of fresh-cut bone, or when bones cannot be had, a 
few handfuls of ground beef scrap. They have 
ground oyster shells constantly before them. I 
never took more pains, or got fewer eggs. They 
look healthy and bright, but lay only one to six 
eggs per day. Why not more ? They have free 
range, and the winter has averaged very mild. 
H. B. 
We should not feed cut bone every day, 
and would certainly feed green food of 
some sort. Judging from our own ex¬ 
perience, we should say that those old 
hens have not begun to lay, while the 
late-hatched pullets are too slow in start¬ 
ing. We know what it is to see such 
hens looking bright and lively, and still 
refusing to do their duty. There is quite 
a general complaint about lazy hens this 
year. We would feed more cabbage or 
other green food, give cut bone every 
other day, and stay right by those hens. 
A friend in New Hampshire sends this 
note: 
I wish you would repeat the ingredients of your 
balanced ration. I desire specially to know what 
stimulant, digester, or regulator, you give your 
fowls, and what vermin-killer you use. My morn¬ 
ing feed is bran and oatmeal mixed with skim- 
milk and ground bone; the noon meal consists 
of apples and occasionally whole wheat; the 
evening meal of whole corn on the cob. Oyster 
shells and gravel are kept by them. The room is 
windproof, sunny and ample. I have got but 
three eggs from my flock of 20 scrub hens since 
November 16. I like your writing because you 
give us the “ downs” as well as the “ ups.” c. e. 
The feed we are now using is bought 
ready-mixed. The one we suggested sev¬ 
eral weeks ago was for a Michigan man 
who had certain grains on hand. From 
our present experience, we would mix 
about as follows : three parts, by weight, 
of wheat bran, two parts of middlings, 
two parts of corn meal, one part of 
ground clover, one part of ground 
meat. That would make an excellent 
mash with skim-milk and with wheat 
and corn alternated at night. We feel 
sure there is nothing like meat for mak¬ 
ing good hens lay. We feel satisfied that 
the best ration in the world will not 
make some hens lay until they are per¬ 
fectly ready. We have never used any 
stimulant. The fault is more in your 
liens than in your ration. Our scrubs 
have served us much the same way, 
though they are doing better now. They 
may be lousy. We dust our hens witli 
P. D. Q. powder, and keep the perches 
well smeared with tar. No meat, scrub 
hens, and possibly, lice, and perhaps, too 
much food, would be our guesses at your 
case. 
Speaking of mashes and rations, here 
is a note from a Pennsylvania man : 
Seeing clover meal mentioned in some of our 
agricultural and poultry papers, I was led to 
make an experiment in having clover ground. I 
took to a local miller, one-half bushel of shelled 
corn, one-half bushel of oats, Wz bushel (packed) 
of cut clover. I mixed the corn and oats, and re¬ 
quested the miller to grind them slowly and very 
fine. While the corn and oats were grinding, I 
fed the clover between the stones by hand, and 
all were ground together into a flue meal. I mix 
•‘Brown’s Bronchial Troches” are a simple 
yet most effectual remedy for Coughs, Hoarse¬ 
ness and Bronchial.Troubles. Avoid imitations. 
—Adv. 
this combination meal with bran and shorts, 
using one-half meal, one-fourth each of bran and 
shorts, for a morning mash for our hens. The 
hens are very fond of it. We have not fed it 
long enough yet to note the effect on the egg 
yield. Our hens have been laying fairly well, 
but we expect still better results by the addition 
of the ground clover. By adding one-eighth, by 
weight, of animal meal (we are out of it at pres¬ 
ent) to the above mixture, we would have our 
ideal morning mash for laying hens. I send you 
a sample of this corn-oats-clover meal, and will 
report my success with feeding it, in due time. 
I have about 25 barrels of second-crop cut clover 
almost perfectly free from weeds and grass. It 
was mown when it began to bloom, carefully 
cured, cut as fine as the cutter would cut it, and 
packed away in boxes and barrels. If I find it 
profitable, I will have it all ground as above. 
Smithfield, Pa. J. t. c. 
Of course, we all want to know how 
this feed answers. It looks well, and 
we would like to have a ton of it. I like 
the plan of giving several ingredients in 
the mash. The hens certainly appreciate 
it. We have no clover hay at Hope Farm 
—in fact, no hay at all. It takes time to 
get grass started, and there was no sod 
at all when we took the place. When we 
get clover, we expect to change our sys¬ 
tem of hen feeding. 
At present, we are feeding the bal¬ 
anced ration in the form of a mash 
almost entirely. Most of our hens have 
hardly seen a whole grain since last 
November, except for a week when we 
fed whole corn at night. One or two 
old hens died from no apparent cause. 
On cutting one of them open, we found 
a mass of fat on the inside, the heart and 
lungs being fairly incased with it. The 
gizzard did not seem to have grit enough 
in it. Prof. Wheeler, of Geneva, N. Y., 
has been feeding ground grain to test its 
value against whole grain, and we wrote 
to ask him if he noticed anything wrong 
with the mash-fed birds. This is what 
he says : 
The chicks fed only ground grain were at all 
times in as vigorous health as those fed whole 
grain, and grew faster. After caponizing, also, 
(Continued on next page.) 
A lamp does not burn very 
well, and eats its head off 
in chimneys, unless you use 
the chimney made for it. 
Index tells. 
Write Macbeth Pittsburgh Pa 
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Save $10 per cow per year. Send for Catalogue. 
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n 
A' 
N ^Itipsr | 
CRE OF CORNi 
and i ts possibilities under the Silage 
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* 
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DRY c 
FODDER 
CUTTING 
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r 
95 p.ct. Fertile Eggs 
Cijas. W. Hill & Son are well-known breeders of Buff 
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chickens. Concerning their use of Bowker’s Animal Meal, 
they write as follows : 
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Bowker’s Animal Meal makes liens lay. 
Bowker’s Animal Meal makes chickens grow. 
Enough for 10 hens three months, $1. 
Four times as much, 12.25. 
For Sale by Dealers and by the Manufacturers. 
The Bowker Company, 
43 Chatham St., Boston, Mass. 
ALWAYS SOLD IN YELLOW BAGS. 
The Improved D. S. Separator 
Continues to Lead 
Its product awarded the 
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and the 
GOLD MEDAL 
At Annual Convention of the Vermont Dairymen’s Association, 
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✓ 
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